Cognitive dissonance plays a big role in Companion. It is after all designed to be a feature in the film’s titular companion series, synthetic lifeforms built to offer physical and emotional assistance to their owners (or “fuck-bots” as Jack Quaid’s Josh enthuses about his purchase). These artificially intelligent machines are meant to emulate human consciousness up to a point—but they must never be aware they’re robots.
And yet, by virtue of the movie’s title, trailer, and overall marketing campaign, we know that Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is very much a robot during the movie’s first act, even if she and the film feign otherwise. When her “boyfriend”—a smugly self-involved nice guy played by one of the nicest-seeming Millennials in Hollywood (Quaid again)—rolls his eyes about Iris’ insecurities over driving into the country, we know it’s because Iris’ emotional needs are getting too human for him. And as Josh’s rich buddy (Rupert Friend) makes seductive moves on Iris and says “you’re made for this,” the audience is keyed into anticipating a Westworld-like uprising at any moment.
But the mirthful joy of Companion is that writer-director Drew Hancock’s screenplay has a lot more up its sleeve than another morality play about the implications of artificial intelligence overthrowing their human overlords. Oh, that’s there too, as are allusions to philosophical sci-fi treatises running the gamut from Blade Runner to Ex Machina. But the thing about Companion is the sci-fi implications are less of a concern than crafting a surprisingly twisty and well-knotted yarn. It’s in fact surprising how many hard left turns you can make in a film that is essentially set in one location.
Yes, the movie hinges on Iris realizing she is both a robot and better than her self-pitying partner, but all of that happens inside of the movie’s first 13 minutes. Afterward, Hancock’s dialogue and charming ensemble gets to really set off for the races.
Chief among that charm is Thatcher. The actress initially plays Iris with a jejune innocence and naivety that might be grating if the actor couldn’t convey such warmth and inexplicable empathy beneath a visibly programmed smile. Don’t blame her for Iris’ simplicity though; as we later learn, Josh has Iris’ intelligence set to 40 percent on a scale between mannequin and Ivy League graduate. And you can bet that’s the first that changes when she gets her hands on the remote.
Iris makes for a robot who maybe represents a brave new world of the future where young men turn to AI girlfriends. But the movie is better concerned with its social implications than those of the hard sci-fi variety. Beginning with a shot of Iris enduring her “meet cute” inside of a grocery store where Thatcher bumps a shopping cart into Josh, the film’s overly saturated color palette and emphasis on a floral dress announces the well-coiffed intentions. Like Don’t Worry Darling, Get Out, and other Millennial chillers, Companion is pulling directly from William Goldman’s adaptation of the Ira Levin novel, The Stepford Wives. But whereas that 1975 horror about “the sexes” ends in tragedy, with poor Katharine Ross having her mind wiped and getting replaced by a robot, Companion has no interest in lamenting with hopeless despair about “the way the world is.”
Rather Companion begins where The Stepford Wives leaves off and offers a spiritual sequel: a tight, funny, and thoroughly satisfying revenge fantasy that plays all the better two months after this country elected an adjudicated rapist to the White House. More satirical dark comedy than a horror movie, Companion is about a robot waking up at the end of Act One and spending the rest of the film’s brisk 97 minutes getting even. Or rather it is the story of a woman who is done being victimized or playing a game that was rigged against her since birth.
Thatcher is once again excellent, but much of the humor comes from the slack-jawed reactions to the humans around this robot who cannot be contained. A generally congenial screen presence, Quaid once again slots well into playing easy-smiling man-children after doing much the same thing in Scream 5. He is joined by similar purveyors of the way of the future like Eli (Harvey Guillén), a friend of Josh’s who is every bit as callow but a lot funnier as he visibly dotes on his own companion of choice, Patrick (Lukas Gage).
Joined by Megan Suri to round out the cast of adversaries trying to keep another woman in her place, Companion is a taut chamber piece that barely ever leaves the modernist lake house and its surrounding woods. But the quirky energy of the ensemble, especially Guillén and Gage’s scenes together, and the narrative figure-eights Hancock’s script perform keep things sharp. Through it all also remains that star turn by Thatcher who seems close to cementing her status as a scream queen between last November’s Heretic and Companion.
Yet we wouldn’t really call Iris a screamer; nor a replicant or another idol for our AI age. She is something far more relevant: a woman realizing that a system which leads her to date scrubs like Josh is completely broken. But unlike the tragedy of Stepford, her solutions to this epiphany will leave you smiling ear to ear.
Companion opens only in theaters on Jan. 31. Learn more about Den of Geek’s review process and why you can trust our recommendations here.
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